electra
by Ivory Muse
Summary: Sorrow found me when I was young; sorrow waited, sorrow won. — Ozai/Azula.


Caligula dearly loved his little Drusilla, who turned out as precocious a child as he had been. He took delight in teaching her his own "immovable rigour", beginning the lessons when she was only just able to walk and talk. He encouraged her to torture kittens and puppies and to fly with her sharp nails at the eyes of her little playmates. "There can be no reasonable doubt as to your paternity, my pretty one," he used to chuckle when she showed particular promise. And once in my presence he bent down and said slyly to her: "And the first full-sized murder you commit, Precious, if it's only your poor old grand-uncle Claudius, I'll make a goddess of you."

"Will you make me a goddess if I kill Mamma?" the little fiend lisped. "I hate Mamma."

— _I, Claudius; Robert Graves_

* * *

.i. — eight

By the time her cousin kicks it and the path to the throne suddenly opens up, Azula knows that she's cunning and smart, really smart, and an amazing bender. She also knows that while her mother and brother both hate and fear her for this, watch as other girls blush and simper and find her painfully lacking, her father looks upon her and says, this is good.

Daddy doesn't like Mother or Zuko or Grandfather Azulon or Uncle Iroh or Cousin Lu Ten, he tells her, because they're weak and corrupt and spoiled and some more words she doesn't really understand yet. He likes her, though, and he sneaks her candied walnuts every day after dinner when he comes to tell her these things. He never punishes her when she gives her governess the slip and teases the servants and lights Zuzu's phoenix-tail on fire, either, only laughs and calls her his cute little terror and says he knew she'd turn out as incorrigible as him. If it irritates your mother, then do it, and I'll come get you out of trouble, he promises.

(And if he loses his temper, slaps her face or singes the back of her neck or locks her in a storage closet, she always deserves it. She makes him so angry sometimes— doesn't she know that he never _wants_ to hurt his special girl?)

More than anything, she just wants him to be happy with her— when her mother grips her arm tight and wonders what is wrong with that demon child, when Zuko stares at her as though she's an abomination, when she's pushed her friends down the stairs too often, she cradles the memory of his rare smiles like an ember to her chest. She knows that what he really wanted was a strong son, not her sickly, weakling brother and a daughter, and so she works and works to compensate for Zuko's failings— studying history and political science and mathematics when she's home from her stupid girls' school, practicing katas until her lungs burn and dark spots swim before her eyes. Prodigy, her father murmurs in return. My sweet thing, my perfect thing.

So when Grandfather, Mother, and Lu Ten all vanish in the same week, she doesn't cry like Zuko, because the palace might be emptier but she also has a shiny gold diadem in her topknot. Instead, she seeks answers from the only person who has ever understood her.

"Daddy, I need to know something," she calls out, approaching him as he paces through the Hall of Ancestors in his new ornate robes. Zuzu claims that he won't divulge the information— she loves proving him wrong.

He stops and turns to face her; to Azula, he looks as intimidating and powerful as the portrait of Great-Grandfather Sozin, maybe even as much as Lord Agni at the front. "What is it?"

"Why is Mother gone?"

"Why do you think she's gone?" he asks in return. "You're a smart girl, Azula. Figure it out."

"You got rid of her, right? If she poisoned Fire Lord Azulon, she might try to poison you."

Daddy laughs. "A good guess, but not good enough. Can I trust you to keep a secret, sweetling?" She nods eagerly, and Daddy leans in. "That worthless bitch ran from the palace all by herself. I didn't have to lift a finger."

Azula absorbs this new piece of information and furrows her brow. "Then why didn't she take Zuzu?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She nods again— Daddy smirks. "So would I. But your mother wants her son on the throne, and thought that with Azulon's death and my ascension I have no reason to harm him." His smile narrows into a razor-thin line. "She miscalculated."

"Don't worry, pet," he adds, idly reaching out to stroke her hair. His hand is cold, so cold. "You've always been my favorite. Things are going to be so much better now. You will become the greatest warrior in the Fire Nation, and one day Zuko will sink to his knees before you."

* * *

.ii. — nine

She's too old to make mistakes and her mother is dead and she's fucked up a kata. She tripped instead of lifting her left foot perfectly. Her mouth is bleeding— he hit her. He looks at her with such ineffable disgust that it takes her breath away; she'd fall to the ground and grovel, but she's done enough falling today. "Azula, do you know what happens to girls who fail on the battlefield?"

A hesitant headshake. "No, Father."

Before she registers what's happening, his hand is down the waistband of her pants. She doesn't understand and there's something sick and cold and slippery in the pit of her stomach and she is frozen with fear, but she does not cry out— there is nobody around to hear and nobody able (willing) to protect her.

"When they're captured," he says, savoring every word as he shoves aside her underclothes, "this happens."

He twists a finger up somewhere it shouldn't go, breaking a barrier she didn't know existed and it hurts it hurts it hurts there's a scream burning in the back of her throat. Warriors are not allowed to flinch and she has disgraced herself so much already. In out in out in out. "You don't like it, Azula?" he mocks, as traitorous tears spill onto her cheeks. She wants so badly to take her punishment like a man, but it's impossible to slow their descent. "Believe me, enemy soldiers would be far less kind."

"No, Father." She bites her torn lip, lets the blood trickle down her chin; it's not the only thing that's bleeding.

After an agonizing eternity, after he's reached so far up inside her she's convinced he wants to tear her organs from her body, he withdraws the finger and wipes it disgustedly on his robe. "That was improper," he declares, "and now I can't have you married off. Prove that I made the right choice, Azula. Do not ever fail me again."

He storms away, leaving her alone with liquid pooling white hot between her shaking legs, her head spinning sosososososso fast. She vomits in the dirt, and then she does that same kata overandoverandoverandover in a wild burst of mania just to keep from thinking, and then she vomits again.

— her fire turns blue.

* * *

.iii. — ten

He comes in silk and rustled bedcurtains, in the vanilla smell of his saké and the cloying caress of his skin against hers, when she's ten almost eleven, and then he never really leaves. Other girls her age are being betrothed left and right to gangly, coltish boys, but her father has always cherished his prize possession— has always wanted her all to himself. "I've molded you since you were born," he whispers into her ear during the still hushhush dawn, when everything is pale and her brain is too full with static to question him. "You are mine, Azula. I would never let anyone else touch you."

It's their secret. She's kept so many of his, over the years— the other women he took to his chambers and the beheadings he let her attend and just how she got the burn scars on her left arm— that he never had to tell her (or threaten her) not to let Uncle or Zuko know about his nighttime visits. They wouldn't understand, he'd muttered, it's special, between us, something sacred— and in the microcosmic war that is the broken halves of the royal family, she chose her side when her Earth Kingdom doll went up in flames. Picked her poison, and all that entails.

She doesn't know how she feels about this as he lavishes kisses on her sternum, as he brings her down onto his hardening cock. She doesn't know how she feels about his fingers tangled in her hair or his palms on her barely-there breasts or his mouth warm and wet covering hers. It is wrong for fathers to bed their daughters (Agni, she isn't so far gone), but her relationship with her father has always been an odd, warped thing, no room for outsiders or their appraisal. And he is so kind, when they are twisted up in her bed together— elsewhere it is _I don't care what happened to your wrist, keep going_ or _her highness ought to lower her nose and do as she's told before she feels the back of my hand_ or his perennial favorite, _you make so angry sometimes I can't think straight, Azula, you can't ever make me angry like Zuko and force me to hurt you_ , ad naseum. Here, he is gentle, traces livid bruises he gave her with a feather-light touch. Here, he calls her consummate with a reverent tongue.

Forget, turn primal. Mother is not here any longer, her brother and uncle should not be here any longer, nobody left to wipe the come off her thighs. Nobody left to cast judgment on crazy Azula, vicious Azula, vulgar, dirty Azula, only the man who cherishes her most. Her life is an empty hallway.

(She's kind of grown convinced that she's too repulsive to love, and she'll take what she can get.)

* * *

.iv. — eleven

It's her eleventh birthday, and she and Zuko are celebrating with a stolen bottle of rice wine. Ember Island should be a respite from the heat, but so far it's been no such thing— her bangs cling stubbornly to her forehead, and she's too lackadaisical and bored to protest even her stupid brother's company. Father is out; he would have both of their hides for getting into his supply, but there is no room for him in this dark, humid bedchamber, no room in this anachronism. She feels very grown-up, almost rebellious, passing the bottle back and forth.

"Where did you get _that_?" Zuko asks, gesturing towards her neck. His eyes narrow suspiciously. "Is it a bruise?"

Her blood freezes— swimming must have washed the foundation off— but she needs to make up an answer. "Ty Lee and I were just messing around," she says, too casual and too fast. She doesn't know if she actually wants to mess around with Ty Lee. She doesn't know what it's like to want to kiss someone.

"You're way too young— and you seriously need to stop talking to her," Zuko says, flopping backwards onto the mattress. He is so careless, so fluid with his body, and it's going to get him killed one of these days. She doesn't like the fact that she notices this.

"Don't tell me what to do, _Zuzu_."

He rolls his eyes and takes a swig from the bottle, then tears up and cringes— pathetic. "Dad thinks she's dragging you down. And if he found out you've been kissing her, too..."

"I know," Azula says with a matching eyeroll. _Soft, frivolous, as empty-headed as your stupid whore of a mother_ , but even she needs some reminder of the childhood she sacrificed on the altar of power. "I don't care. I'm bringing her up, not the other way around." She grabs the bottle and gulps half the remaining contents.

Father has grown more and more possessive as she gets older, as her waist tapers and her bones twist into something almost pretty. He wants her where he can see her, every minute of every hour of every day, meditating or studying or bending or listening in on his council meetings. Ty Lee is the antithesis of his overbearing presence, her one weak spot; with her she can pretend, at least for a few hours, that her life hasn't changed since they were seven.

(He's tolerant, even slightly fond of Mai's silent obeisance, but Mai wants to be with Zuko now that they're young ladies and not children. Because Zuko always has to take everyone from her, doesn't he?)

"You call me an idiot?" He looks so genuinely concerned, it's almost endearing. "You're going to be so screwed if you don't just forget about her. Remember how mad he was when you skipped training because she wanted to buy scarves at the market with you?"

Of course she remembers. She'd bought a pink one at Ty Lee's insistence— 'it makes your aura look so much brighter!'— and worn it to cover more mottled bruising on her neck. Their father has a temper. She made him do it with her disrespect for his time and effort, she knows that.

"Dad likes me best," she reminds him— not that he should need the reminder. Then she jabs her finger into his stomach hard where a faint burn scar is. He has no room to scold her for provoking their father, because Zuko does it all the time, hangs around their loser uncle and talks back under his breath and plays with swords when he's supposed to be working on his mediocre firebending, and gets beaten for it all the time too. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

He's been looking at Zuko as less of an annoyance and more of a threat lately, especially because her crack-voiced brother is crawling ever closer to manhood, but Azula doesn't know how to phrase it and the words catch in her throat. She can do what she wants with Ty Lee, because in the end there is the preferred child and the prodigal one, borders as impenetrable as Ba Sing Se's. Zuko won't even see it coming.

(Later, she will raise her fist and smile, and from then on she will wear _her_ father's face.)

* * *

.v. — twelve

Her arm is broken in three places, and her brother and uncle are gone forever, and her father is next to her in bed. She should have known better than to interrupt him when he was in such a frothing, poisonous mood, after Zuko had disgraced himself so utterly, but Zuko might as well be dead and there are two new firebending scrolls and an expensive silk cheongsam on her armoire. Hush money, even though there is nobody to tell, has never been anyone to tell.

"You are the crown princess now," he says, breaking the silence by pointing out the obvious. His eyes are feverish and wild; she thinks he might be drunk. "Didn't I tell you when you were little, sweetling, that I would take you to the top? Didn't I? That Zuko would sink to his knees before you?"

"Yes, Father." A pause. "I'm sorry I made you angry." The self-loathing bubbles up and settles deep beneath her skin, because she isn't sorry, she _isn't_ and she didn't know that he was so enraged when she came to announce her newfound mastery of the dragon forms... but she had a front-row seat to Zuko's burning. She saw what that wound looked like. The pain herbs she was given drown out how he pissed himself and begged and flailed around on the floor, the horrified expression on his face right before the blow landed— nothing, though, can erase his scream's imprint on her skull.

(Maybe that was his intention all along. She's a good girl, though, isn't she? Her mind is a copy of his, her body indisputably his property. Every night she's spent touching and tasting and being swallowed whole, that's proof of her unwavering loyalty— right?)

His smile sends shivers down her spine, and then he rolls over and kisses her on the mouth, wet and saccharine, which somehow feels soso much worse than the pins in her wrist. "No matter, my dear," he says; it is a lie, he never forgets a slight, but she chooses to accept it. "This is a new world for us, Azula. Cleansed of all contamination. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes, Father." Like a parrot-monkey. When she turns her head, she can still smell the jasmine perfume he doused her in a few nights ago, perfume meant for a woman twice her age. No matter how much she scrubs, the scent isn't coming out.

For once, he did not fuck her; perhaps the sight of her splinted arm and herb-clouded gaze is too pathetic. He rises to his feet, and drops a larger, golden hairpiece on her bedside table. "Wear it tomorrow," he orders in a low voice. "And the cheongsam."

What else is there for her to say?

* * *

.vi. — thirteen

She grows up. Her cheeks thin, her breasts swell, and she begins wearing her mother's old cosmetics— dark kohl around her eyes, paint that makes her lips look as enticing as a courtesan's. When her father's generals ogle her openly and wonder out loud how much of a devil she must be in bed, at the war meetings she freely strolls into, she entertains long fantasies about shooting perfect lightning bolts straight through their chests because she can _do_ that now.

The lightning gives her a powerful giddiness, as though she has finally mastered all and sundry and conquered the world and most importantly learned to control herself. Perfect breathing, perfect concentration. She can slow or speed up her heartrate at will and lie without flinching. Her blood sings electric, a constant tempting crackle.

(Azula is more than a little obsessed with blood lately— drawing it, losing it. There has been trauma between her legs for too long, slipping down her thighs like liquid sunlight, but it blossomed honestly for the first time this year. Woman. Woman. When her father found out, he thrust a bag of illegal, chalky-tasting contraceptive herbs into her hands and said that he'd strangle her if she didn't mix it into her tea every day. She swallowed obediently, along with the red beans and rice they had for dinner, and wondered not-so-idly how the raw, wounded rust from her womb would look next to the brightness from opened veins.)

Her father has become an ever-more oppressive presence in her life, the military men's leers raising his jealousy to fanatical new heights; she remembers being a little girl in a ladies' boarding school, wishing so much to just be home with him, and chokes back a delirious laugh. When he bursts into her bedroom one night uninvited, as she's brushing out her hair in front of her mirror, she can't even bring herself to feel surprised.

"Who are you always dressing up for?" he demands, a hurricane in his fury. He knocks a tub of powder off the vanity and it spills, making a smeary mess the servants will have to clean. "Is this for other men? Do you think I want my daughter parading herself around the Caldera like a common whore?"

 _Because sex is my only purpose, isn't it?_ "Daddy, I wasn't—" is the little-girlish whine that comes out, a desperate attempt to pacify him.

Like an adder-python, he strikes; Azula stumbles back involuntarily, clutching her face. A coppery streak flows down her chin— her bright lower lip has split, and she's nine years old, fucking again, and there is nothing she can ever satisfy him with.

Father looks at her with a false calmness, soothed by the violence. He traces a thumb across her jawline, titling her head up the same way he once did Zuko's. "What a beauty you are, Princess Azula," he mocks. "Almost as beautiful as your mother was."

He has never mentioned her mother like this before, in all these years, and suddenly Azula is so _angry_ she fears her head is about to burst. Almost. Almost almost almost. She wants to hit him back as hard as she can, though that would be certain suicide; she wants to hurt him so badly that she doesn't care if she's destroyed too.

And then he grabs her by the hips, his grip so strong that she knows she'll bruise, and then he's hiking up her robe, and then he's thrusting into her without restraint and his teeth sharp against her collarbone and his awful laugh and she wants to die she wants to die she wants to die— "do you remember who you belong to now? Do you?"

(This isn't love, it was never love, and she can annihilate men twice her size but her lightning is useless here and she doesn't want this and there's something so horribly horribly freeing about finally being able to _admit_ it.)

* * *

.vii. — fourteen

(The first night he came to her, she cried. It hurt, too big and too scary and too much for her to handle, pain between her legs violation blood all over and even with her upper-echelon brains she didn't understand _why_. He kissed the tears off her face and spoke more tenderly to her than he had in years; "be quiet, be a good girl," he muttered into her hair as he thrust sharply, savagely. "You're so beautiful, I want to take care of you. Let me take care of you. Don't you love me, Azula?"

Afterwards, she put her torn robe back on and sat with her knees held to chest, a shuddering stop. She stayed like that until daylight streamed in from her big windows, and then she dressed and ate breakfast with her father as if nothing had happened. He told her about crop failures in Xi'an province with a mild, noncommittal tone, took two servings of miso soup, and then he came back the next night and the next and the next—)

The avatar has been discovered, that fucking idiot Zhao and her sniveling excuse for a brother and her traitor uncle have been judged unworthy, and she is going out on a mission through the Earth Kingdom to bring the latter duo home for a taste of Fire Nation justice. Her father was furious tonight that his favorite toy will be leaving him that so many ships were lost that his orderly rule was slipping out of his grasp, took her from behind, and she gritted her teeth the entire time, fantasizing about getting a good blow between Zuko's eyes the second she sees his hideous scarred face.

It's so cliché, the ravished maiden trying to scrub herself clean, but Azula does it anyway. She has the servants prepare her a bath with water hot enough to sear her skin off, then she heats it up even more with her firebending until her heartbeat is pounding in her ears, until the burn is so intense that it almost feels like ice. Tilting her head back and working sandalwood shampoo through her hair, she wonders what her mother would say if she knew that her (former) husband was fucking her despised daughter. Would she think that the two of them deserved each other, welcome the escape from her marital duties? Would she be horrified by how low the royal family had sunk? Would she— and now this is really entering the realm of fantasy— care about Azula's wounds, Azula's corruption, Azula's suffering?

 _Be quiet, be a good girl. Be quiet, be a good girl. Be quiet, be a good girl—_

She pinches the small vestiges of baby fat on her stomach, hard enough to leave yellow and green and blue marks. Disgusting, that softness, both in her body and in her mind. She's fourteen years old, and her mother has been dead since before she outgrew nursemaids— and even before she outgrew them she had already been branded a monster, not a child. No, she was never a child, not like innocent Ty Lee or sullen Mai or whining Zuko; she frightened her mother's friends when she was younger, the sweet prince's strange, cruel little sister, an epicene snarl in every word and action. All sharp tongue and burning hands and predator eyes. She knew the philosophy behind death and used her brother's tears for war paint, a raging holocaust in her still-simmering fury. This is the bed she made, the inevitable conclusion; her father's hand twisted up between her thighs, his breath hot against her neck. You want this, Azula, don't you? The frigid bitch I had to call a wife never did, but we were always meant for each other, my sweet one, my perfect thing. Hold still. Hold still. Don't be afraid. Touch me like that, yes yes yes. Good girl. Bend shudder break.

 _Worthless useless soft pathetic weak walking miscarriage_ — she plunges her head under the water and thinks that she will be out of this house tomorrow, and for the first time in her life, she will be free of the demons. Free of the ghosts. If only she could cut out her mind, cut out all the memories inside, and leave it here with them.


End file.
